Expletives
by Hekateras
Summary: Aziraphale is an angel. He does not shy away from the name of God. / Companion piece to 'Endearments'.


Aziraphale is an angel. He does not shy away from the name of God.

While Crowley has had cause to complain, vocally and frequently, about the overall confusion of swearing and whose name a demon is meant to invoke when he genuinely wishes to offend, Aziraphale has things easier in that he simply does not swear. Ever.

(In theory.)

And so, he does not shy from the name of God.

It had felt odd, to be true – almost sacrilegious - back in the old days of that tentative, deceptively casual trust, to be calling upon God in conversation to highlight a point, even as one of the Damned sat across him, yellow eyes ablaze and swallowing him up – but no, that is silly of him and a perfect point regarding the two-way flimsiness of memory. It hadn't been Like That, as a human might put it. It had been company and a feeling of understanding he'd been hesitant to accept and the strangest, growing fascination of truly coming to know another being so much like himself, not of Heaven or Hell but foremostly, most immediately of _Earth_.

It is the strangest thing in the world, for an immortal – a, one would think, fundamentally unchanging and unchangeable creature - to look back, and for the mirror of memory to show you someone you can scarcely recognise, even as you see all the lines and cracks and chips that brought you here, to this place, time and moment. It is a slow, calm horror that overtakes you, when you look from above at all the forks in the road and understand at last how many there have been, how many slips and accidents of chance could have steered you away from this moment, irrevocably – how bewildering, miraculous and _fateful _it is that they did _not._

That he is here, now, after six thousand years on this confusing, marvellous world with a love for it he'd never quite acknowledged as being stronger than his entire purpose of being – even if in the end, all it took was a demon drawing a line in the sand and reaching a hand across it.

That he could have been alone, but _isn't_, that no judgement of Hell or Heaven or mishap with holy water has conspired to change that, in six thousand years. That Crowley comes around on days both sunny and overcast and that the rain falls on the just and junust alike but the demon always weaves out of the way with serpentine grace, that wine tastes better when it is shared and that atrocious old horror films are simply the rage to watch when you're already giddy enough that you can't see straight.

That Crowley will sometimes invade the place as if he owns it, traipsing about like a puffed up cat until given attention to, making noise and jumping up and down on the concept of personal space until it is like the proverbial overly kicked horse. That he may, on occasion, be completely undemanding instead, content to doze quietly with his shoes kicked off and his legs draped over the armrest of the couch, and that he doesn't mind his forehead being used to prop up a book so long as there is a hand threading softly through his hair, as well.

That Crowley may, when it comes down to it, lean in and hiss an invitation, and then it's down to the bakery and across the road and over to the park and its increasingly obese ducks.

That he may, on occasion, catch Aziraphale staring at him too many times in one evening, and then he'll lean in and whisper about ducks and mean something else entirely.

That Aziraphale is here, now, at this moment, and that today it is neither ducks nor leisurely drives around the countryside, but rather grotesquely luxurious sheets silky against his skin and slippery under his clenching hands, his vision going hazy not from wine but from the nimble fingers working their way down the underside of his wings.

That there is breath on his back and that they do not _need_ to breathe, and that it is _precisely_ for that reason, among countless other touches, that his human body feels so much more than just a vessel right now, feels _his_ and _right_ and _meant to be_ more than any other time. That it should feel shameful, embarrassing even, to let himself be controlled by nothing but blood and tissue and warm breath and nerve endings, but instead it feels like the loveliest, most forgiveable of betrayals.

Aziraphale does not shy away from the name of God.

But there are times when he forgets that there _is_ a God – that there is Heaven, or Hell – indeed that such a degree of separation is even _possible. _It seems ludicrous – impossible, even - when he can hear the other's heartbeat clearer than his own, when his fingers perch on the nape of a neck like birds returned to a long-lost home, when every touch is reflected back at him in a dizzying wave – when it occurs to him that the Beatles might have had a questionable taste of hairstyles but the right idea about many other things.

When the demon laughs at him, breath blowing away the hair his face, and tells him quite frankly what he thinks of bringing up the Beatles at a time like this.

Aziraphale does not shy away from the name of God, but there are times when it is neglected, forgotten and quite meaningless.

And First Commandment be damned, the only name on his lips is _Crowley, Crowley, Crowley._


End file.
